


Historical Relevance

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternia-Focused, Ancestors, History, Homestuck - Freeform, Trolls, narration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doc Scratch lies, awaiting his imminent death. But does time ever truly pass slowly for a being such as he? Does it matter?</p><p>In his final moments, he conveys a story, as a gracious host is known to. The story of a dead planet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Historical Relevance

Hello. My name is Doc Scratch. These are my dying moments.

It is so very freeing, to die. Something you could never understand until it was too late. Haa haa. Hee hee. Hoo hoo.

Perhaps you would like to know a story, esteemed guest? That is what hosts do; tell stories.

A long story...

My appearance on Alternia's moon was approximately 413 million years ago (or in this case, almost 191 sweeps ago). This was before the appearance of sentient life on Alternia, and my purpose was inbred and clear. I would forego natural laws and selection and craft the sentient life I knew to come, so as to pave the way for my master. It took a long time, but I waited. I knew what I had to do.

So I did so, and soon after their arrival I gave my little puppets a sentience-warming gift. An emissary of the horrorterrors in the flesh. Many, many died. So very many. It was unfortunate.

The horrible emissary gave birth to one single egg from its abyssal and horrible mouth, creating a terrible bug monstrosity that soon burrowed into the Earth. This would become the first Mother Grub, which offered an alternative to typical reproduction that valued sexual love and harmony. Its coexistence with the precursor to the troll race would shape their reproduction system from the more traditional method it had previously been. Originally, reproduction in the more traditional methods was biologically possible, but the practice died out due to imperial decree and evolution adapted to fit the change.

And so begins the tale of the first character, the first Empress of Alternia. She reigned in the time before time; there is little record left, but it is known that she tamed the mighty emissary, who would not gain a name until later. It mattered not; the terrible beast of the dark gods had a name that only those of the tyrian purple blood could hear, and even they were unable to utter the name to someone else in its truest form.

The first Empress has come to be known as Shepherd of the Bloodied. She was, despite what an alien might think, not the first Imperial Condescension. Her role in society was in fact never officially ordained; her vast power allowed complete obedience without the need of governance.

Her rule of the seadwellers was accepted by all, and she lived mostly peacefully. Later she would find the landdwellers, who were unable to stand up to her ferocious will. She was the longest lived of all the empresses, living over ten thousand sweeps and seeing her species at its cultural prime. Her reign ushered in the beginning of cinema, which would become one of the oldest and most popular Alternian arts.

Alternian historians (a very rare sight in the planet's final days) took to calling this ten thousand sweep period "The Tyrian Age" for the Shepherd's almost universal power with no question of authority. In truth, this age was probably the worst of all Alternian history, for it served as the violent foundation to cause the horrors of later days.

The Shepherd not only allowed slavery of the lowbloods; she mandated it. All those under the olive green caste were to be put in the caste of cast iron chains. Not a single slave rebellion arose in ten thousand sweeps, but violence amongst the lowbloods was common. Higher-blooded lawbreakers were sometimes sentenced to serve in this slavery as well as a form of penal slavery. It was not entirely uncommon to see teal slavery, though any higher was incredibly rare.

Those of the higher castes, when disobeying the empress, were expected to be put into combat against slaves, with some slaves even earning their freedom and an honorary caste adjustment upon defeating certain highblood worthy warriors. This system of rewards freed very little slaves, and in fact there were a few cases in which honorary highbloods were once again enslaved despite their accomplishments; however, they did fuel blood feuds that became the precursor to the hatred behind the modern hemospectrum.

Though at the end of the species, the highblood landdwellers would enjoy grand dwellings of immense size and pleasure, the original houses of landdwellers were simply shacks that only highbloods were to be given. Those lower than the teal caste were expected to serve as tenants in small hovels owned by seadwellers, whilst slaves typically had no house at all. Indeed, many had no lodgings at all and were forced to sleep in the wilderness.

Seadwellers, though allowed to own large properties, usually did not in practice. Instead, most lived in gigantic mini-cities known as "coral palaces." They were communal and luxurious, and even the Shepherd enjoyed the pleasure of one.

Reproduction through the Mother Grub became the common practice (by the Shepherd's mandate, she being directed by her lusus), and by 5000 EE (Establishment of the Empire), much of the troll reproductive system had become vestigial. This rate of evolution is unprecedented among any species in my vast knowledge, credited mostly to the dark power of the horrorterrors' influence. Eroding the power of love and sexual desire is not a hard task for such beings.

As well, at the start of the First Empire (as it has come to be known), the practice of parenthood to a young troll became a new concept among highbloods and seadwellers. Before this, a very loose attachment and sometimes pack mentality had been the case, but with the arrival of deep sentience and the horrorterror emissary, attitudes changed. Trolls began raising their children until the age of eight to nine sweeps, and this practice continued until about 1000 EE. The Shepherd was struck by the emissary (this has never again occurred) and told that this practice must be stopped. As such, the Shepherd split apart families (with little effort) and ordained the practice of being raised by what became known as a "lusus," a relationship modeled after the Shepherd and the emissary. 

The establishment of the lusus-troll relationship did have one positive effect. Lowblood children were given communal living facilities to be with their lusus and avoid the horrors of slavery until the age of seven sweeps. After this, the child was thrown into slavery, and their lusus was taken away and judged by a highblood council as worthy enough to continue serving another lowblood child of appropriate blood color. If they were judged unworthy, the lusus would be slaughtered mercilessly. Highbloods with appropriate housing were allowed to keep their lusii, but it was not uncommon for the killing of a lusus to be used as a warning punishment by seadwellers against higher-blooded landwellers.

It is remarkable to note that despite this age containing some of the worst atrocities of all of trollkind, it had virtually no rebellions until the sweep 9567 EE. Even so, this rebellion was one between suitors.

For the first time in all of history, a seadweller attempted the courtship of the Shepherd. Indeed, no one had ever attempted such a feat, but even more remarkable, the very next day an indigo blood attempted the very same. The Shepherd did not kill the two suitors, but left her duties to deliberate on the issue, having never given her romantic life second thought. Her final order at this point was for peace between the suitors, despising conflict between higher-blooded trolls (which up until this point was rare enough to elude precedent).

In the first ever known show of force against the Shepherd's direct, face-to-face orders to a highblood, the seaddweller challenged the indigo blood to a duel. Duels in a general nature were considered gentlemanly and thus not actually called conflict, and very rarely did one die in one (and never was it intentional); however, the seadweller suitor broke rules of engagement and cheated in the duel, making use of a powerful firearm. As well, he intentionally murdered the indigo blood in a fit of jealous rage.

This murder sparked rage in the Shepherd, who ordered the death of a seadweller for the first time. Indeed, she later revealed to an aide that she had intended to pick the indigo blood as her suitor. The murder also brought rage and ire from all of the landdwelling population, who demanded further retribution against the attending seadwellers who had allowed it to happen. Seadwellers in turn found the execution to be horrible and completely unnecessary, they and came to despise the landdwellers as a result, with the belief that they had caused the dispute.

The ire of the Shepherd caused her to create the quadrants system, with legend saying that the first kismesis was her dead seadweller suitor, and the first matesprit being her dead indigo blood suitor. The other two quadrants were devised further by her in an attempt to help the existing ones, and she pushed them through philosophical propaganda.

9999 EE, her final sweep of life, saw the institution of the Imperial Drones, at this time known simply as "Drones." The Shepherd became disgusted with love and used these to gather reproductive material to be fed en massy to the Mother Grub. At this time, the Drones did not require that genetic material be put into a filial pail under threat of death, but the widely broadcasted nature of the Shepherd's rage coerced every single troll on Alternia without failure for the final year of the Shepherd's reign.

The Shepherd's reign would end on the eve of 9999 EE. I remember that day all too well. Of course, that does not mean I took part in it. And I remember every day well. This is the nature of the omniscient.

But this day was also a day in which I was overwhelming proud for a certain Handmaid. You know.

As proud as an omniscient and omnipotent adoptive father with a cueball for a head could be.

**Author's Note:**

> Added a few canon pairings and the like, because they'll definitely be there in some form, obviously. But I'm not exactly sure where to take the story and how much I'll focus on some of the ancestors (though I think I'm at least pretty good on about half). Assuming I can edit the description later (first story, dunno if I can), I will to accompany any such thing and the addition of new characters as they come.
> 
> More to come later. And it will be fantastic. Thanks for reading this first chapter!


End file.
